Print shops are typically medium or large scale facilities capable of supplying printing services to meet a variety of customer demands. For example, print shops are often used to print documents used for mass-mailing (e.g., customer bills, advertisements, etc). Because print shops engage in printing on a scale that is hard to match, their customer base is usually varied. Print shop clients may therefore include both large institutional clients (e.g., credit card companies and banks), and small clients (e.g., small businesses and churches).
Print shops are generally arranged to print incoming jobs from clients in a way that is economical, yet fast. Thus, print shops often include a number of high-volume printers capable of printing incoming jobs quickly and at high quality. Print shops also typically include post-processing devices that are used to process the printed documents of each job (e.g., stackers, staplers, cutters, binders, etc.). Because print shops serve a variety of clients, they are often tasked with printing jobs that have varying printing formats, delivery dates, and media requirements. Print shops therefore often use a centralized print server that coordinates activity between printers of the print shop and clients. The print server schedules incoming jobs and forwards them to the printers they are directed to.
The printers of a print shop may be managed by operators who setup printers, oversee print jobs, remove paper jams, stack or cut printed pages of print jobs, or move printed documents of print jobs to various locations within the print shop. These activities may be performed while the printer is still printing jobs from the print server. As the printer is printing, it may be desired to perform tasks on the printer such as loading it with media or ink. However, a printer operator's activities prevent them from constantly monitoring the printer.
Printer operators therefore desire to be informed of upcoming tasks to be performed on a printer while they are engaged in their daily activities. Tasks to be performed may include loading the printer with media or ink, or calibrating a printer before a print job is printed. If a printer is not set up correctly, it may print the documents of a print job using the wrong media or ink. If documents are printed improperly, time and resources are wasted because the print job will be re-printed.